7 HE COUNTRY SUNDAY. 73 



either for accidents or diseases. If any one fell ill he 

 had to be content with the workhouse doctor ; if they 

 required anything else they must go to the clergyman 

 and get a letter of introduction or some kind of certificate 

 for a London hospital, or any infirmary to which he 

 happened to subscribe. The chapellers made no bones 

 about utilising the clergyman in this way ; they con- 

 sidered it their right ; as he was the parish clergyman, it 

 was his place to supply them with such certificates. 

 There was no provision for the aged labourer or his wife 

 when strength failed — nothing for them but parish relief 

 There was no library. There was no institute for the 

 teaching of science, or for lectures disseminating the 

 knowledge of the nineteenth century. Every now and 

 then the children died from drinking bad water — ditch 

 water ; the women took tea, the men took beer, the 

 children drank water. Good water abounded, but then 

 there was the trouble and expense of digging wells ; in- 

 dividuals could not do it, the community did not care. 

 Does it not seem strange ? All this fervour and building 

 of temples and rattling of the Salvation Army drum and 

 loud demands for the New Jerusalem, and not a single 

 effort for physical well-being or mental training ! 



While these pranks are played at Bethel let us glance 

 a moment in another direction down the same green 

 country lane on the same bright summer day. Let it 

 be late in the afternoon of the Sunday, the swifts still 

 wheeling, the roses still blooming, blue-winged jays 

 slipping in and out of the beech trees. These hazel lanes 

 were once the scene of Puritan marchings to and fro, of 

 Fifth Monarchy men who likened the Seven-hilled City 

 to the Beast ; furious men with musket and pike, whose 

 horses' hoofs had defaced the mosaic pavements of 

 cathedrals. These hazel lanes, lovely nut-tree boughs, 



